
Lorie Hearn
Executive Director and Editor of inewsourceLorie Hearn is the executive director and editor of inewsource. She founded inewsource (formerly called the Watchdog Institute) in the summer of 2009, following a successful 35-year reporting and editing career in newspapers. She retired from The San Diego Union-Tribune, where she had been a reporter, Metro Editor and finally the senior editor for Metro and Watchdog Journalism. In addition to department oversight, Hearn personally managed a four-person watchdog team, composed of two data specialists and two investigative reporters. Hearn was a Nieman Foundation fellow at Harvard University in 1994-95. She focused on juvenile justice and drug control policy, a natural course to follow her years as a courts and legal affairs reporter at the San Diego Union and then the Union-Tribune. Hearn became Metro Editor in 1999 and oversaw regional and city news coverage, which included the city of San Diego’s financial debacle and near bankruptcy. Reporters and editors on Metro during her tenure were part of the Pulitzer Prize-winning stories that exposed Congressman Randy “Duke” Cunningham and led to his imprisonment. Hearn began her journalism career as a reporter for the Bucks County Courier Times, a small daily outside of Philadelphia, shortly after graduating from the University of Delaware in 1974. During the next two decades, she moved through countless beats at five newspapers on both coasts. High-profile coverage included the historic state Supreme Court election in 1986, when three sitting justices were ousted from the bench, and the 1992 execution of Robert Alton Harris. That gas chamber execution was the first time the death penalty was carried out in California in 25 years. In her nine years as Metro Editor at the Union-Tribune, Hearn made watchdog reporting a priority. Her reporters produced award-winning investigations covering large and small local governments. The depth and breadth of their public service work was most evident in coverage of the wildfires of 2003 and then 2007, when more than half a million people were evacuated from their homes. Contact Lorie at loriehearn@inewsource.org.
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The governor and top emergency official in Texas are both members of a council advising the Trump administration on options for eliminating the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
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The State Department is warning U.S. diplomats of attempts to impersonate Secretary of State Marco Rubio and possibly other officials using technology driven by artificial intelligence.
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For residents like Jessica Calix, who's still living in a travel trailer after her Southcrest apartment flooded in January 2024, watching footage of the Texas floods was heart-wrenching — but also all too familiar.
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A federal education grant funding freeze is affecting many school districts across San Diego County. Millions of dollars of public school funding are in limbo.
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Lemon Grove City Councilman Sitivi Faiai, elected to his first term in November, suddenly died Tuesday, the city announced.
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Premieres Mondays, July 14 - Aug. 18, 2025 at 9 p.m. on KPBS TV / PBS app. The competition returns to Nashville with eight talented home cooks showcasing their signature recipes each week. After eight weeks of cherished recipes and heartfelt stories, one home cook will be crowned the winner! We have a local San Diego contestant!
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